Denial

At the next meeting at the Celebrate Recovery program I’ve been going to we will talk about denial. For those of you in Doylestown, De Nile is not a river in Egypt.

Recently, I mentioned to a smoker that my dearly departed friend and companion Sandi would still be around and would have gotten around better most the time I knew her if it weren’t for a lifetime of smoking those nasty cancer sticks. “You can’t prove that”, was the response from the smoker, who had started to cry a short while back when the smokes ran out and I would not pick any up for this friend who has trouble getting around.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States.

⦁ Cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States. This is nearly one in five deaths.

⦁ Smoking causes more deaths each year than the following causes combined:

⦁ Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

⦁ Illegal drug use

⦁ Alcohol use

⦁ Motor vehicle injuries

⦁ Firearm-related incidents

⦁ More than 10 times as many U.S. citizens have died prematurely from cigarette smoking than have died in all the wars fought by the United States.

⦁ Smoking causes about 90% (or 9 out of 10) of all lung cancer deaths. More women die from lung cancer each year than from breast cancer.

⦁ Smoking causes about 80% (or 8 out of 10) of all deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

⦁ Cigarette smoking increases risk for death from all causes in men and women.

⦁ The risk of dying from cigarette smoking has increased over the last 50 years in the U.S.

I recently met someone at a community meal I’m very fond of who smokes, by her own admission, to cope with problems. She said she quit for a while, but then something came up that she had trouble dealing with it. She told me she realized she had to learn to cope with problems another way. I told her that Sandi quit for about a year towards the end, mainly because she couldn’t get around and that I would not get smokes for her. You did that because you cared about her,” my newfound friend touchingly said. Yes, and because I care for her and others I try to convince people not to smoke. Not abruptly, by saying “you vill stop” (with a German accent) and mainly on these blogs, which some people are afraid of. If you are the emperor, I’ll blog that you need a new set of clothes.

People have a free will and, as per one of the rules in the Celebrate Recovery 12 Steps program, you don’t try to fix people. That’s God’s job.

I channel Diana Ross and The Supremes and sing “Stop! In the name of love. Before you break my heart.” My heart is broken over Sandi being one of Johnny Smoke’s victims. Johnny Smoke is an evangelist for a rogue mission church: Sister Nicotine and The Holy Smokes.

Helping people to cope with their problems without alcohol, drugs, including cigarettes or through other bad ways is why Celebrate Recovery, a national program with local chapters, was created. I’ve been having trouble with anxiety, depression, anger/frustration, resentment, so I go to a meeting once a week in Northeast Philadelphia. I am not in denial, and I know De Nile is not a river in Egypt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv6tuzHUuuk&feature=youtu.be